Topband: Solar Activity & Topband

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

I'd say the conditions seemed good from East of Mississippi to East of
Mississippi.  They were especially good from NC to MN and IA, go figure
 :>).  But conditions from NC to the west coast were AWFUL. From PAC the
usual 569, 579  KH6CC was R2 at best, and was only up to that elevated
level for a few minutes, and disappeared.

So much for 160 contests on X class solar flare weekends?  See if things
improve tonight.    73, Guy.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 1:24 PM, Shoppa, Tim <tshoppa at wmata.com> wrote:

> > Well, maybe they have been good at your QTH.  Here, the conditions to
> > Europe have been the worst in recent memory.  Just fleeting peeps of
> Europe
> > barely working through. Only honestly R5 signals were from Portugal.
>  One G
> > was R4, and the rest, what few of them there were, were R3.  73, Guy
> (Apex,
> > NC)
>
> I'm far from a propagation expert but my observation: 160 inside NA was
> working real good in the NAQCC QRP 160M sprint and last night too. (Side
> note on the NAQCC 160: I had never thought of 160 as a QRP band before but
> the best ops really shone through that night.)
>
> HK0NA has been coming in just fine here on the east coast on 160M many
> evenings the past week. A neighbor told me he got Pitcairn on 160M (I
> missed them somehow)
>
> None of the above require polar paths.
>
> But last night the only euro DX I worked was southern Europe (like Guy
> mentioned), and I only barely heard the peeps of the northern euro
> powerhouse stations, stations that when conditions are good I could
> probably receive just fine using just a few feet of wire hanging out the
> back of the radio or maybe just my tooth fillings Gilligan-style.
>
> My guess (ready to stand corrected, and learn as a result!): Solar
> activity has disrupted the 160M polar paths but not so much others.
>
> Tim N3QE
> _______________________________________________
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>